The Year in Media formally began Feb. 1, when Janet Jackson committed the unthinkable – she made the Super Bowl halftime show memorable.

Her “wardrobe malfunction” gave 90 million viewers a glimpse of her star-studded right breast, causing a collective gasp.

We’re still trying to catch our breath.

Two days later, the TV show “ER” edited out a shot that would have shown an elderly patient’s nipple. Nine months later, 65 ABC affiliates pulled the plug on a Veteran’s Day broadcast of “Saving Private Ryan,” fearing the wrath of the suddenly activist Federal Communications Commission.

Never mind that that the World War II epic, with its hellish talk, aired uncut in 2001 and 2002.

Was it, as Washington Post critic Tom Shales asked, the “nipple that inflamed a thousand nut cases?” Or “the 9-11 of the new culture war,” as Rolling Stone editorialized?

Or was it something else – the dawning of a massive citizens movement?

That’s Jeff Jarvis’ view.

“I think the theme (of 2004) is about control,” said Jarvis, a former TV Guide critic who writes the Buzzmachine blog. “The people are getting control and the big guys are losing control. If you believe in democracy, that is a good thing.”

Days after “Nipplegate,” FCC Chairman Michael Powell spoke of an unprecedented leap in indecency complaints, from roughly 14,000 in 2002 to more than 240,000 in 2003. More than four times that many have landed this year, according to the FCC.

But those numbers are misleading. Jarvis gained attention in the fall by filing a Freedom of Information Act request that revealed a suspicious pattern in the FCC complaints. Fox’s $1.2 million fine for sexual content in “Married by America” was based on 90 complaints from 23 people – all but two of them using a form letter produced by the conservative Parents Television Council.

Where did that news come out? In Jarvis’ blog.

Bloggers – those Web log diarists, pundits and pamphleteers – set many media agendas this year, keeping the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth on the front burner, publishing the first pictures of U.S. flag-draped military caskets being sent home from Iraq, and hounding CBS’s Dan Rather for falling for fake documents about President Bush’s National Guard service.

By year’s end, more than 5.2 million bloggers were out there, according to the Technorati Web site, prodding both the government and the watchdogs.

The year 2004 drove a few more well-placed nails into the coffin of Big Media. Newspaper circulation continued to decline, as did the television networks’ audience – viewers turned to cable stations. Radio lost listeners and stars such as Bob Edwards and, soon, Howard Stern to satellite upstarts. The technologically savvy programmed their iPods and TiVo boxes to create their own programming playlists and TV grids.

“We spent the better part of the last century building the biggest mass media in history and the last few years dismantling it,” said Robert Thompson, director of Syracuse University’s Center for the Study of Popular Television.

Where Walter Cronkite was once the most trusted man in America, today’s print journalist has credibility problems. A Gallup poll in the fall showed respondents found auto mechanics and elected officials to be more honest. TV reporters, too.

The nation’s largest newspaper, USA Today, replaced its three top editors after an internal review found star foreign correspondent Jack Kelley had committed “years of fraudulent news reporting.”

Straight news – if that term can still be used without irony – saw challenges from hyper-opinion. News laced with satire from Jon Stewart, among others, ruled.

“What we are seeing are the fault lines of an industry in a profound crisis,” said veteran media dissector Danny Schechter, whose latest documentary, “Weapons of Mass Deception,” critiques uncritical coverage of the Iraq war.

“People have called this a ‘post-journalism’ period, where reporting is more about packaging than about information-sharing. What we’re seeing is this rise of these big corporate city-states with their synergies and deals with one another, and their internecine influence on society.”

Ask media observers what were the biggest stories, and one of them, Jonathan Rintels, director of the Center for Creative Voices in Media in Washington, mentions one that slipped under many radars.

In June, a U.S. Court of Appeals panel stopped the FCC from relaxing media ownership rules, which would have let corporations increase their newspaper and television holdings in certain markets.

Concern of media concentration has led to what Rintels calls the rise of the permanent media-reform movement, led by Common Cause, Consumers Union – as well as the Parents Television Council.

“People are trying to take control of, and not being passive consumers of, media,” Rintels said.

Schechter’s 75,000-member Media for Democracy group actively seeks to influence coverage of such matters as electronic voting.

“I think you’ll see a lot more activism on this issue, people seeing that not all voices are represented well,” the former network news producer said. “Media is the new battleground.”